Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: deepwater drilling, EIA, fracking, IEA, liquid fuel production, oil price, oil price predictions, oil production, Peak Demand, peak oil, refinery gain, shale oil, tight gas, tight oil
Via Kurt Cobb in the CS Monitor:
Back in the year 2000, the IEA divined that by 2010, liquid fuel production worldwide would reach 95.8 million barrels per day (mbpd). The actual 2010 number was 87.1 mbpd. The agency further forecast an average daily oil price of $28.25 per barrel (adjusted for inflation). The actual average daily price of oil traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange in 2010 was $79.61
[…]
So, what made the IEA so sanguine about oil supply growth in the year 2000? It cited the revolution taking place in deepwater drilling technology which was expected to allow the extraction of oil supplies ample for the world’s needs for decades to come. But, deepwater drilling has turned out to be more challenging than anticipated and has not produced the bounty the IEA imagined it would. …
via When oil forecasts get it wrong – CSMonitor.com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bakken, fracking, health care costs, shale gas, shale oil, tight gas, tight oil, Watford City
A less obvious form of corporate welfare.
The furious pace of oil exploration that has made North Dakota one of the healthiest economies in the country has had the opposite effect on the region’s health care providers. Swamped by uninsured laborers flocking to dangerous jobs, medical facilities in the area are sinking under skyrocketing debt, a flood of gruesome injuries and bloated business costs from the inflated economy.
via Boom in North Dakota Weighs Heavily on Health Care – NYTimes.com.
This post is an interesting companion to the one below.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bakken, CH4, fracking, horizontal drilling, Natural gas, natural gas flaring, North Dakota, oil production, shale oil, taxes, tight gas, tight oil
Rampant waste and environmental degradation have been part of the Bakken boom. The state doesn’t care about that, but it wants its taxes.
Helms estimates that about 30% of the gas produced in the state is flared, since development of takeaway infrastructure has not matched the pace of drilling.
Producers are currently allowed to flare gas for a year without paying royalties. The new bill would extend that tax-exempt period for two more years if an operator can collect at least 75% of the produced gas.
via N. Dakota tax bills pique industry interest – Upstreamonline.com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: COGC, Colorado Oil and Gas Association, energy production, Frackenlooper, fracking, fracking ban, Hickenlooper, Longmont, Natural gas, shale oil, tight gas, tight oil
This report in the NYT doesn’t mention that our governor Frackenlooper has all but joined the suit in an attempt to overrule the voters of Longmont. If he plays his Weasel Cards right he’ll be a cabinet member some day.
The lawsuit, filed on Monday by the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, seeks to overturn the ban on the contentious practice that passed by a wide margin last month in the northern Colorado city of Longmont. The measure, the first of its kind in the state, still allows oil and gas drilling within city limits, but it prohibits hydraulic fracturing, which has lifted energy production across the country but has raised concerns about air and water contamination.
via Suit Seeks to Overturn a City Drilling Ban in Longmont, Colorado – NYTimes.com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Asjylyn Loder, Bakken, cornucopianism, crude oil, fracking, hydraulic fracturing, lies about fracking, Marcellus, North Dakota, oil extraction, peak oil, PR, propaganda, shale oil, techno-worship, technology, tight gas, tight oil, United States oil production
America’s latest oil rush was spurred by new technology that has made drilling faster, cheaper and better at unleashing oil from rock formations,…
That is false. Fracking (the oil guys always called it ‘fracing’) is old technology. Many decades old. But it’s an expensive way to get oil, relatively speaking. So it hasn’t been prudent to frack/frac for shale oil until the overall situation reached a certain point where the price of a barrel of crude was likely to remain above the cost of extraction. In other words, the fracking boom in the U.S. does not signal the death of Peak Oil. It is in fact part and parcel of a new era wherein cheap oil is a memory, a much more expensive era in energy. Perhaps that is why the misinformation campaign has been in overdrive.
via Asjylyn Loder, “American Oil Growing Most Since First Well Signals Independence,” Bloomberg..
Spreading disinformation through the media is even older technology.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fracking, fracking ban, it's about water, shale gas, tight gas, UK
Poor blokes have been snowed. Quite.
Not only has the UK green-lighted fracking, it is also using tax breaks to promote shale exploration and development. Indeed, the UK hopes to see a shale gas revolution of its own.
So what are the new rules for fracking? Right now it’s still a bit vague, but overall it involves a strengthening of oversight and an automated seismic activity detection system designed to halt operations in time.
via UK Lifts Fracking Ban, Now What?.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bakken, bakken formation, EIA, Montana, Montana oil production, North Dakota, tight gas, tight oil
Appears to have peaked. See, the Bakken formation is in Montana and North Dakota.
click to enlarge
via EIA: http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcrfpmt2&f=m
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: energy production, hydraulic fracturing, North Dakota, Oil Drum, oil production, peak oil, Rune Likvern, tacos, tight gas, tight oil
via a comment by Rune Likvern at the Oil Drum: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9648#comment-931584
click to enlarge
looks a little peaky…probably just a temporary hitch… don’t be alarmed…
Note: the Bakken shale is in Montana as well as North Dakota.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bakken, crude oil, demand destruction, energy, fracking, IEA, KSA, mbd, oil consumption, oil production, Our Finite World, refinery gain, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabian oil production, shale gas, shale oil, tight gas, tight oil, Tvberg, Tverberg, unconventional oil, US oil production, WEO, World Energy Outlook
The happy talk on future production is crazier than ever in the latest IEA World Energy Outlook, but there are also some stunningly pessimistic predictions buried inside. Wild!
For instance: The US will become number one oil producuh again and rediscover our lost oil-producing prowess with about 11 million barrels/day (Yay!) — which must mean Saudi Arabia won’t approach IEA’s previous prediction for that country of roughly 15 mbd output (Ooof). And the predicted exporter status of the US (Yay!) relies as much on a huge drop in consumption as it does on increases in production (Ooof). So it’s a bit of a sad day in IEA land, where consumption always went up, up, up.
From Tverberg:
The International Energy Agency (IEA) provides unrealistically high oil forecasts in its new 2012 World Energy Outlook (WEO). It claims, among other things, that the United States will become the world’s largest oil producer by 2020, and will become a net oil exporter by 2030.
Figure 1. Author’s interpretation of IEA Forecast of Future US Oil Production under “New Policies” Scenario, based on information provided in IEA’s 2012 World Energy Outlook.
Figure 1 shows that this increase comes solely from the expected rise in tight oil production and natural gas liquids. The idea that we will become an exporter in later years occurs despite falling production, because “demand” will drop so much.
Note that IEA and other maniacs add NGLs, biodiesel and even ‘refinery gain’ to the US oil production number, in a crude attempt to fool y’all.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: China, energy, fracking, good cop-bad cop, jobs, LNG, LNG exports, LNG trade, Natural gas, natural gas trade movements, Obomney, OMG, RBAC, Robama, shale gas, tight gas, trade deficit
“We are confident that either one would be supportive of LNG exports,” Cooper told Rigzone.
U.S. LNG imports, which peaked at nearly 2.4 billion cubic feet per day in 2007, have fallen substantially as the growth in North American gas production due to shale gas, according to an Oct. 18 report by RBAC Inc., a company that develops and licenses management decision support systems for the energy industry. As a result, LNG facility backers are now seeking to outfit existing U.S. LNG import facilities with liquefaction equipment to ship LNG overseas.
Proponents say U.S. LNG exports will benefit the United States by creating construction jobs, and generate revenue to reduce the U.S. trade deficit through LNG sales and federal, state and local government tax revenues.
via RIGZONE – Romney, Obama Seen Favoring U.S. LNG Exports.
Know what else creates jobs and generates revenues? Cheap domestic gas. Exporting gas which would otherwise be flooding the U.S. market would raise the price for Americans. This would probably destroy a lot more jobs than would be created to build and maintain LNG terminals. The job-creation argument goes out the window.
In the meantime, the negative consequences of energy production would accrue right here in America.
Are western Americans willing to sacrifice their water so international companies can frack their shale gas and ship it to China? Robomney bets yes.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bakken, Bakken Shale, crude oil, energy, horizontal drilling, James Hamilton, Jeffrey Brown, marginal costs of production, natural gas liquids, Niobrara, oil price, oil shale, peak oil, shale oil, shale plays, tight gas, tight oil, tight oil formations, unconventional oil, westtexas
Throwing a little cold water on some recent, loudly reported unscientific predictions. When you read Hamilton, always be sure to read the comments by Jeffrey Brown for an important Big Picture view.
In addition to the uncertainties noted above about extrapolating historical production rates, the rate at which production declines from a given well over time is another big unknown. Another key point to recognize is the added cost of extracting oil from tight formations. West Texas Intermediate is currently around $85/barrel. With the huge discount for Canadian and north-central U.S. producers, that means that producers of North Dakota sweet are only offered $61 a barrel. Tight oil is not going to be the reason that we return to an era of cheap oil, for the simple reason that if oil again fell below $50/barrel, it wouldn’t be profitable to produce with these methods. Nor is tight oil likely to get the U.S. back to the levels of field production that we saw in 1970. But tight oil will likely provide a source of significant new production over the next decade as long as the price does not fall too much.
via Econbrowser: Shale oil and tight oil.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Chesapeake, Chesapeake Energy, China, energy, energy independence, energy security, Natural gas, shale gas, shale oil, Sinopec Fu Chengyu, tight gas
All part of America’s new ‘energy security.’
Fu Chengyu, chairman of Sinopec Corp, was in Oklahoma last week to explore the possibility of a bid for a shale gas project, which is owned by Chesapeake Energy, the second largest shale gas producer in the US, Reuters reported.
via China's Sinopec eyes shale gas assets in US | China Economic Review.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Douglas, energy, fracking, Natural gas, natural gas drilling, Niobrara, Niobrara shale, shale gas, shale plays, tight gas, Wyoming
Niobrara fights back.
An oil well blowout in Wyoming prompted 50 residents to evacuate their homes amid concern that a spewing cloud of natural gas could explode.
Gas continued to erupt from the ground Wednesday after the blowout Tuesday afternoon five miles northeast of Douglas in east-central Wyoming. Witnesses told television station KCWY-TV they could hear the roaring gas from six miles away.
Residents evacuate after gas leaks from Wyo. well.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Clean Air Act, directional drilling, EPA, fracking, green completions, horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing, methane, Natural gas, shale gas, shale plays, tight gas, tight oil, VOCs
From an EPA press release:
During the first phase, until January 2015, owners and operators must either flare their emissions or use emissions reduction technology called “green completions,” technologies that are already widely deployed at wells. In 2015, all new fractured wells will be required to use green completions. …
An estimated 13,000 new and existing natural gas wells are fractured or re-fractured each year. As those wells are being prepared for production, they emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which contribute to smog formation, and air toxics, including benzene and hexane, which can cause cancer and other serious health effects. In addition, the rule is expected to yield a significant environmental co-benefit by reducing methane, the primary constituent of natural gas. Methane, when released directly to the atmosphere, is a potent greenhouse gas—more than 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
I’ll keep the line above as it was typed into the page’s description by some agency PR person, because that alone tells you all you need to know about the EPA.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Cheniere, energy, fracking, hydraulic fracturing, liquefied natural gas, LNG, Natural gas, natural gas exports, shale gas, tight gas
Energy independence? Not so much.
The government may decide as soon as next week on Cheniere’s request to build a $10 billion Louisiana plant that would be the largest in the U.S. to liquefy gas and load it onto ocean-going tankers. Regulators will discuss the project April 19. Cheniere’s shares rose as much as 11 percent in New York.
via LNG Export Plant Verges on U.S. Approval Amid Shale Glut – Bloomberg.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alaska, deepwater, energy, fracking, GOM, Gulf of Mexico, horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing, North Slope, Prudhoe Bay, shale gas, tight gas, tight oil, unconventional oil
From EIA. Prudhoe Bay also “reversed the decline in domestic oil production” at one point.
click to enlarge
Filed under: maps | Tags: Bakken, Barnett Shale, Eagle Ford, energy, energy production, fracking, hydraulic fracturing, Marcellus, Niobrara, oil production, Piceance Basin, shale gas, shale oil, tight gas, tight oil
Via EIA.
click to enlarge
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fracking, hydraulic fracturing, Marcellus, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania fracking law, shale gas, shale oil, tight gas, tight oil, Tom Corbett
And the public at large of course. “Non-disclosure agreement.” According to this report anyway.
… If a company does release information about what is used, health care professionals are bound by a non-disclosure agreement that not only forbids them from warning the community of water and air pollution that may be caused by fracking, but which also forbids them from telling their own patients what the physician believes may have led to their health problems. A strict interpretation of the law would also forbid general practitioners and family practice physicians who sign the non-disclosure agreement and learn the contents of the “trade secrets” from notifying a specialist about the chemicals or compounds, thus delaying medical treatment.
The clauses are buried on pages 98 and 99 of the 174-page bill, which was initiated and passed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly and signed into law in February by Republican Gov. Tom Corbett.
via Fracking: Pennsylvania Gags Physicians | Truthout.
Filed under: maps, Uncategorized | Tags: Carrizo Springs, Eagle Ford, energy, energy production, fracking, fracking and water, hydraulic fracturing, Natural gas, shale gas, shale oil, shale plays, Texas Railroad Commission, tight gas, tight oil, WSJ
via http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204528204577009930222847246.html
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Baker Hughes, Bakken, Eagle Ford, energy, frack, fracking, hydraulic fracturing, Marcellus, Natural gas, natural gas production, proppant, tight gas, tight oil
…a.k.a. proppant. Didn’t see that one coming, Baker Hughes didn’t either apparently.
Industrialized Cyclist Notepad 